A recurring topic of conversation is balancing the demands of life in 2018. Balance is another way to ask, “Am I living it right?” From the minute we start running to ball practice, cheer leading and music lessons, we join the rat race. The fast lane is different for everyone and it changes the older we get, but the need to balance everything remains the same. I played golf two weeks ago for the first time in forever. I was having a blast until I looked at the time. We had enjoyed an hour and forty minutes together and were teeing off on the 7th hole. When I learned our pace of play, I stopped having as much fun.
Asking for divine intervention in balancing life and time is near the top of too many prayer requests. “Help me balance my…everything!!” FOMO has become epidemic and the result is multitasking on steroids; and opioids for that matter. The attempt to balance our time is a control issue. At the core, control is a spiritual issue.
The Bible says “Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures.” Psalm 90:10. At the pace most people are running that’s a very big IF. We try to balance our incessant wants and growing list of demands on our time. Anxiety arises because we were not meant to manage time on our own. We were designed to submit and let God direct how we use our time, where to spend it and what to do with it. If you don’t have a connection to the Holy Spirit, you’re on your own to balance life. Good luck. That’s why there are books, videos and college degrees on time management…and so much frustration.
So, does God know more about balancing and managing time? Proverbs is a book “for obtaining wisdom and discipline; for understanding words of insight.” Proverbs 1:2. Wisdom is seeing things as God sees them. “For through me your days will be many, and years will be added to your life.” Proverbs 9:11. Obviously, if God can add years, we need to let Him speak into how we balance our time.
The writer of Psalms reminds us that with God, “..a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by..” Psalm 90:4. If we can get advice from a God who has that perspective, understanding and sight, I have to think balancing our schedules can become a whole new ballgame.
As everything with God, it takes faith and believing. “Listen, my son, accept what I say, and the years of your life will be many.” Proverbs 4:10. The practicality of this means starting each day in communication with Him through the Holy Spirit. Giving Him props and submitting to where He leads us to spend our time is a discipline that can yield hours to your day and make the years of your life more numerous.
God has become a common name accepted in our culture. Jesus is known to his followers but can be divisive to others. The Holy Spirit is more unknown and rarely taught and talked about from the pulpit today. Letting God dictate your pace of play each day requires listening and obedience to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is critical to your faith and crucial to time management.
Why and how is the Spirit such a vital component to letting God manage your day? For starters, He is the guiding voice in a believer’s head and heart. He is the EXPERT in looking ahead and seeing around the next corner. Jesus vouched for the Spirit to all of His followers. “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” John 16:13. I can’t think of a better resume and referral.
Balancing your time and settling into a comfortable pace of play in life might require a few changes in your daily routine. It begins by submitting control of each day to the leading of the Holy Spirit. This requires a relationship with Jesus and getting to know the voice of the Spirit. It isn’t difficult, but it does take a commitment and discipline.
The Holy Spirit gives power, revelation, warnings of things to come, speaks truth, gives hope, renewal, rebirth and gifts from heaven. With these abilities, balancing your life and schedule doesn’t seem far fetched. Your pace of play will never be an issue again.